Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell showered his wife, Elaine Chao, with praise Thursday night, over her confrontation with protesters who wanted the Kentucky Republican to answer for immigrant children being separated from their parents at the U.S. southern border. Chao, who serves as transportation secretary, told the demonstrators to “leave my husband alone” as the couple departed an event at Georgetown University on Wednesday evening. McConnell explained he told his wife to hop into the waiting car, but Chao leapt into action....

[full title] REVEALED: Mitch McConnell’s In-Laws Bought 10 Massive Ships from the Chinese Government Since His Wife Elaine Chao Became Transportation Secretary Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) in-laws have ordered 10 massive cargo ships from the Chinese government since the senator’s wife Elaine Chao became Secretary of Transportation. The deep financial ties between the Chao family’s shipping business Foremost Group and the Chinese regime were first revealed in the #1 New York Times bestseller Secret Empires.Foremost has yet to disclose the financial details of its latest deals with CSSC. Similar transactions with CSSC have recently cost over $47 million...

Peter Schweizer, who delved into the Clinton Foundation’s dealings in 2016’s “Clinton Cash,” has turned his sights to the money-making machinations of DC’s political elite. His new book, “Secret Empires: How the American Political Class Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends,” — due out Tuesday from Harper Collins — exposes how politicians engage in “corruption by proxy” by exploiting family and business ties to enrich themselves and their relatives. Here, The Post’s Larry Getlen details the book’s revelations on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, ex-Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker and others: In 2004, current Senate...

SAN FRANCISCO - The Trump administration announced Monday that it will fully fund a $650 million federal grant for electrification of a San Francisco Bay Area train system that also would help California's high-speed rail project.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao quashed rumors Wednesday night that President Donald Trump's administration and GOP lawmakers would wait to unveil a plan for infrastructure revitalization until 2018. Though it still might take that long to get legislation through Capitol Hill, Chao announced at a department event in Washington that a $1 trillion infrastructure proposal would be unveiled by the end of the year. She teased a "strategic, targeted program of investment valued at $1 trillion over 10 years," according to Reuters. "The proposal will cover more than transportation infrastructure. It will include energy, water and potentially broadband and veterans...

In the first big hit to the Bay Area from the Trump administration, newly minted Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao has put the brakes on $647 million for Caltrain to go electric — and in the process pretty much killed for high-speed rail coming to San Francisco anytime soon. “It puts the (electrification) project in serious jeopardy,” Caltrain spokesman Seamus Murphy said Friday. Caltrain carries about 60,000 riders a day between the South Bay and San Francisco, but its diesel-driven trains are both costly to operate and slow. Officials see electrification as a way both to increase ridership and save money...

U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao had been on the job only a few weeks when she took action on one of the region's most intractable problems and directed millions in federal transit dollars be withheld from the District, Maryland and Virginia until they create a safety agency to oversee D.C.'s subway, Metro. Chao was making good on a threat by her predecessor, Anthony Foxx, a move that surprised some local officials who had hoped that the jurisdictions had shown enough progress to stave off the action. It's too soon to say whether Chao's action is a sign she will continue...

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald J. Trump has selected Elaine L. Chao, the former Labor secretary under George W. Bush, to head the Department of Transportation, elevating someone who has been a fixture of the Republican establishment in Washington to a post that could become integral to shaping one of the most ambitious parts of Mr. Trump’s agenda. Mr. Trump, a real estate magnate, has said infrastructure redevelopment is a priority. And Ms. Chao has experience — politically and personally — in navigating the competing centers of power in the capital. She is married to Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky...

(CNN)President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Elaine Chao, the former labor secretary and wife of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, to be his choice for transportation secretary, an official briefed on the matter told CNN on Tuesday. The announcement is expected to come this afternoon. Chao served as secretary of labor under President George W. Bush from 2001 through 2009 -- the longest tenure in the position since World War II -- and has been married to McConnell since 1993. She was the first Asian-American woman to serve in a Cabinet position. Chao also served as the deputy secretary of transportation...

WASHINGTON – A Democratic operative deleted her Twitter account Monday following a series of what some called racist remarks about Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao. Chao, former U.S. Labor Secretary under President George W. Bush, is Asian. Kathy Groob, who describes herself as an “advocate for women in politics,” sent a series of tweets related to Chao at a political event Saturday. According to WKMS, Groob sent the tweets in response to comments McConnell made at the event, in which he referred to his wife as "the only Kentucky woman who served in a president’s cabinet." In...

A crucial system for making payments to insurers from the federal Obamacare marketplace, HealthCare.gov, has yet to be built, a senior government IT official admitted Tuesday. The official, Henry Chao, visibly stunned Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) when he said under questioning that a significant fraction of that online insurance marketplace has yet to be constructed. (Read more: Low-bamacare enrollment) Getty Images Henry Chao, deputy CIO and deputy director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' Office of Information Services, testifies during a hearing before the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. "We still need...

Cmte. Chair Darrell Issa (R-CA) holds another in a series of hearings on the implementation of the Affordable Care Act and the rollout of the government's healthcare website. The administration says the website will be fixed by the end of November.

NOTE The following snippet is a quote: losangeles.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel11/la050911.htm Southern California Man Sentenced to 25 Years in Prison for Convictions in Smuggling Schemes, Including Plot to Bring Surface-to-Air Missiles Into United States LOS ANGELES—A Southern California man was sentenced this morning to 25 years in federal prison after being convicted on a series of federal charges related to schemes to smuggle many items into the United States, including surface-to-air missiles designed to shoot down aircraft. Yi Qing Chen, 49, of Rosemead, California, received the 300-month sentence from United States District Judge Dale S. Fischer. Last October, following a two-week trial, a...

LOS ANGELES—In two separate cases, three men have been sentenced to federal prison for attempting to transport sensitive and advanced U.S. technology to the People's Republic of China (PRC). Two men were sentenced yesterday, and another man linked to one of the schemes was sentenced last week to five years in prison. William Chi-Wai Tsu, 61, a Beijing resident, was sentenced yesterday to 40 months imprisonment for his role in exporting high-tech integrated circuits with military applications to the PRC. In a separate case, Tah Wei Chao, 53, of Beijing, was sentenced yesterday to 20 months imprisonment after pleading guilty...

Fifty years ago, Congress passed the landmark Landrum-Griffin Act to protect rank-and-file union members from malfeasance by union leaders. Senate hearings had uncovered serious corruption and other unethical practices inside the labor movement, and a bipartisan coalition emerged to shine the light of disclosure on union practices.Nevertheless, Democrats in Congress and in the executive branch have often attempted to undercut that law's financial reporting and disclosure requirements. Prior to reforms adopted in the George W. Bush administration, for example, one union could get away with reporting a $62 million expenditure as nothing more than "contributions, gifts, and grants to local...

"Earlier today, Americans for Limited Government announced that it had formally asked Labor Secretary Elaine Chao to launch an immediate investigation into a well-orchestrated plan by top union officials, environmentalists, and political interest groups to raid worker pension funds in order to push the green agenda."

How The West Was Won The rapid and unexpected decline of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq was officially recognized this week, when Maj. Gen. John Kelly, commanding the Marine Expeditionary Force, turned operational control of Anbar Province over to the Iraqi army and police. Anbar, a vast expanse of desert the size of North Carolina, had been the stronghold of the Sunni insurgency. For years, foreign fighters loyal to al-Qaida had sneaked across Iraq's northwestern border with Syria, into Anbar and down a "rat line" of safe houses in Haditha, Ramadi and Hit. From Fallujah, the arch terrorist Zarqawi...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Two men attempting to board a plane to China with nearly a dozen sensitive infrared cameras in their luggage were arrested on Saturday, a federal official said. Federal agents stopped the pair on the jetway as they were preparing to board the flight to Beijing. The men had been in the United States for about a week, said Rick Weir, assistant special agent in charge of the Los Angeles office of the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security. Yong Guo Zhi, a Chinese national, and Tah Wei Chao, a naturalized U.S. citizen, were arrested...

My apologies for being so late for the Dose. We had an emergency come upPresident Bush flew with Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao to Baltimore MD this morning to discuss the Jericho Faith-Based and Community Initiative Program TranscriptAs promised last night, President Bush signed an executive order Protecting American Taxpayers from Government Spending on Wasteful Earmarks This evening President Bush met in the Cabinet room with Joint Chiefs and Combatant Commanders THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Secretary, thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, we're glad you're here. The Vice President and I welcome you all. One of the highlights of my year...

When Congress comes back from its August recess in September, one of the quiet controversies lurking in the wings will move to center stage as Democrats resume their campaign to slash funding for the Office of Labor Management Standards in the Department of Labor. While this may sound like typical Washington insiders baseball, the function and operations of OLMS are anything but inconsequential — monitoring the financial disclosure compliance of labor unions. Because OLMS has been the Bush administration's chief tool for ramping up union financial accountability standards, it appeared in the Democrats' crosshairs even before their new majority in...